Though Hattie McDaniel was a performer for most of her life, on stage, in film, and on radio and television, her career was largely defined by the racism of the culture she lived in and the limitations it placed on her achievements. White audiences who are familiar with McDaniel only from her oscar-winning role in Gone with the Wind, are probably unaware of the criticisms directed at her by other Blacks who were angry at those who perpetuated racist stereotypes. McDaniel, like many Black performers of the time, anxious to succeed in an industry controlled by whites, made a career out of taking the roles that were offered to her. In a Hollywood that, throughout the twentieth century, offered few genuinely complex roles for people of color, the roles available to large Black women in the 1930s and 1940s covered the narrow range from...